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So if I have understand the new law, a person in the UK can now be arrested if they photograph (for example):
(a) The front of number 10 Downing Street with the policeman standing beside the famous door
(b) a scene at a football match if policemen are in the view
(c) The Queen in her royal carriage if members of the armed forces or police or security services are in the picture as well
(d) A police station since the photograph may contain car number plates which may or may not be owned by policemen who could then be identified based on their cars
(e) Buckingham Palace if any members of the armed forces are in the photo
(f) Police on horseback charging down peaceful protesters. So no photographic evidence could be used if it later turns out that these very same police on horseback killed some of the rioters in their horse charge.
(g) RAF air displays since members of the armed forces might be identified in your photos.
(h) The joyful homecoming of HRH Royal Navy ships with all the sailors lined up on the upper decks, since with even using a 3M pixel digital cameras and no zoom, sailors could be identified from your photos.
(i) UK troops serving abroad or anywhere could not be photographed. So you couldn't show in national newspapers them operating in various conflict zones around the world.
etc...
Silly isn't it? But it is now the law in Mass Surveillance R US UK (MS RUS UK)
@ Andrew - remember that this stupid law also applies to former police, military or intelligence agency personnel, without exception, regardless of why they are no longer active members, even if they were disgraced etc.
Asking about when and where, say, a Remembrance Day Poppy Parade may be held ,would also count as "eliciting or attempting to elicit" information. (these have been targets of Irish terrorists in the past).
so if police are in view at a football match does that mean it would be illegal to film the game that will be the end of sky sports then!!
@ Darrel - perhaps they will all wear facemasks, or insist on electronic blurring of their faces (the technology exists to do this, but possibly not in real time for broadcast of live matches)
Darrel and wtwu and other readers:
Yes, yes and yes. Facemasks and electronic blurring is the likely outcome (I think) of these new laws.
I refer you all to films like Brazil (dystopian world and bureaucratic, totalitarian government). This is where we are today in the UK.
I assume that the UK standard policmens PC Plod uniform will now be changed to include facemasks (Hannibal Lector style even).
Oh joy how to alienate your entire police, army and security forces from your population, by this and many other silly, stupid and in my view, evil laws.
Also bear in mind that as these laws also include past members of such forces, then even taking photos of retired armed forces personal placing Remembrance Day poppies at your local war memorial is now illegal.
...Come to think of it taking photos of such war memorials is also now illegal as the names of past members of the UK armed forces will be visible in your photos.
Any new future UK government must overturn these laws if they are to get my vote.
Don't the police get captured everyday on CCTV? Will all the operators now face legal action?
This could be interest to readers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/religion/moralmaze.shtml
Programme Details
Wednesday 11 February 2009
Anything to declare?
The government this week revealed plans for another database, this time to store and monitor the international travel records of all British citizens.
The aim is to fight terrorism and illegal immigration and it's in addition to the Home Office plans for another system to keep details of every phone call and email that is sent and the national identity card database.
We're rightly concerned when this data goes missing, but a House of Lords committee goes further, saying the monitoring of the everyday activities of innocent individuals was becoming "pervasive'' and "routine''.
How worried should we be if the government knows more about our private lives? Are the claims that Britain is becoming a surveillance society the cries of paranoid obsessive’s who haven't noticed that many thousands of people are happy to post very detailed information about themselves on the internet?
Where should we draw the line between the private and the public and the state's right to know?
PANEL: Michael Buerk (Chair) Melanie Phillips; Claire Fox; Michael Portillo; Kenan Malik
Great Energy
Its brilliant to see so much energy about political issues. But I'm not sure that the practical application of this act will lead to arrests of tourists at the gates of buckingham palace as suggested above.
Although the government clear fowls up occasionally (understatement) in its public realtions exercises. In most cases this Act will allow the police to take action where appropriate, where previously their hands have been tied.
In the last 18 months I have witnessed personally, while commuting, an individual acting suspiciously with a video camera at serveral london underground stations on my journey. The police unable to take action.
There is also evidence to suggest that Afgan and Iraqi insurgents have used news reports and opensource photographs to gather intelligence to prepare attacks on UK troops. I think
Any law like this can be abused. Stop and search etc. It is our responsibility to expose where its abuse is occuring but also to respect where the aplication of these laws can and is being appplied to improve our collective safety and security.
We are better equipt now to publicise abuses of the law then ever before in our history.
The answer to the question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" is "We do!".
The internet, blogs, newspaper reports, the use of our democratic processes and protests at clear abuses of any law.
My fear is that it is natural human instinct to react to change. Hormonal responses trigger the fight or flight response. Many of the views above are sensationalist and alarmist for this reason.
Instead we should appreciate that we live in a safer society because of the organisations and individuals you are planning to protest against.
@ JL - your point about the inability of Police to act
is not really so.
The exisiting NPIA Practice Advice on Stop and Search:
NPIA Practice Advice on Stop and Search in relation to Terrorism and on the War on Photographers
produced for ACPO, makes abundantly clear, that if the Police actually do have any real grounds for supsicion that someone is engaged in "terrorist reconnaissance", then they already have the power to stop search and to seize camera equipment (but not to destroy evidence by erasing photos or video footage) under the Terrorism Act 2000 section 43 search of persons
They have had this legal power for the last 9 years, with similar powers under the "temporary" terrorism legislation for many years before that.
From a counter terrorism point of view, the very last thing that the Police should be doing is challenging or arresting a suspected terrorist reconnaissance operation in public !
They should be keeping it under covert surveillance in the hope that it will lead them back to the rest of the gang of plotters, ad any weapons or explosives if these actually exist.
You also say
They would have to be both incredibly amateur and unbelievably lucky to make a successful attack, without conducting some up to date reconnaissance of their own.
Any small risk which open source material poses is far outweighed by its wider benefits to society.
How is it justifiable for this new section 58A law to also include all former police, military and intelligence agency people, without exception, including convicted criminals or traitors or those who have resigned or been fired in disgrace ?
I doubt if anyone will ever be convicted under this new law, but I do fear that many people will be threatened with arrest, "reported" or arrested as a result.
"attempting to elicit" information (even if you are not actually successful in obtaining it) is such an overbroad, "catch all" power, that this will have a chilling effect on free speech and on investigative journalism or blogging, since an Arrest Under Terrorism Legislation , even if you are never charged or convicted, means that you will be forever blacklisted on secret intelligence, criminal record, fingerprint, DNA, travel watchlist and financial databases, not just in the UK, but around the world, with no chance of ever having all of these records expunged.
For example, I am already feeling inhibited about researching into the possible financial corruption scandal for which Sir Ian Blair (the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police) was questioned about, regarding the award of multi-million pound contracts to his long time friend's company. These investigations were officially dropped once Sir Ian resigned, but who will dare to look into them, or anything similar, now ?
Would the Mail on Sunday have been able to investigate their story about Bob Quick, the controversial head of the Met's Counter-Terrorism Command and his family business involving private hire luxury cars, being run from his home, a story which was clearly in the public interest ?
I strongly disagree with the posting by JL and his or her views!
JL is just trying to spin this new law as something good,safe and in the best "security" interests of the UK. Surely it is a "planted" posting with someone with a Vested
Interest (VI). A bit like Estate Agents posting on www.housepricecrash.co.uk.
Words and phases like "Great Energy", "practical application", "take action where appropriate", "previously their hands have been tried", "individual acting suspiciously", "also evidence to suggest", "respect where the application of these laws", "improve our collective safety and security", give the game away and point at JL being a VI.
Many many people (including foreign nationals) love the UK underground and so of course will film anything down there in the depths of the earth. Have you looked on
www.youtube.com for such videos!??? Type in "london underground" and you will get about 10,000 hits. Wow that means there are so many individual acting suspiciously filming in the London Underground doesn't it? (NOT!).
This law is evil, silly and wrong. How may arrests and prosecutions will it take before this law is overturned perhaps by force by laws of the EU? e.g. Human rights, false imprisonment etc...
Listen to the BBC Radio 4 : The News Quiz Question of Friday 13th Feb 2009. You will find it on the BBC R4 web site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/newsquiz.shtml
Download mp3 at
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fricomedy/fricomedy_20090213-1855a.mp3
(26mb)
They joked about this new law. Listen at 9 mins, 15 seconds. The audience reaction was a big grasp after Sandi Toksvig said "The new anti terrorism law that comes into force on Monday makes it a criminal offence to take a picture of a picture officer".
I think that the audience reaction was most likely edited down/almost out. That is the way it sounds to me. Listen to it yourselves. Big huge grasp from the audience.
David Gorman: "Tricky at family does two of my brothers are policemen"
Andy Hamilton: "Millions of tourists are going to be carted away outside Buckingham Place"
Jeremy Hardy: "Is a cultural thing? Is it that police officers believe that part of their soul dies when their picture is taken?"
Various: "What about picture camera action and all that? Look at this stupid motorist get busted by the cops.
You won't be able to see any of that any more. It will just be police action. They will have to pixilate the policemen as well as the criminals."
----
As of Monday I assume the Sunday Mail could not run a story such as this (which they are running today) with a photo of an ex (I assume?) Police Officer (i.e. Ken Jones).
Perhaps on Monday they will be legally required to remove the photo from their Web site? (Though they may not know that until later....)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1145581/Body-charge-UK-policing-policy-18m-year-brand-charging-public-70-60p-criminal-records-check.html
"Body in charge of UK policing policy is now an £18m-a-year brand charging the public £70 for a 60p criminal records check"
To answer JL, the answer to the question "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" is "They do" and they appear to get away with shooting people like
Jean Charles de Menezes. Yes lots of individuals acting suspiciously on London Underground when they were busy shooting Mr Menezes in the head multiple times with no warning it seems to me and many others.. How handy that the CCTV footage was missing and as of Monday would such CCTV footage be now legal to use in UK a court of Law anyhow????
Thanks for covering this, and the Calling London Photographers event which I attended a couple of weeks ago.
One thing that I am still concerned about with respect to this law is the way it will effect photographers who don't have representation with the NUJ or any other professional body. Amateur photographers such as myself who simply enjoy taking photographs.
The wording of this law is so utterly vague: "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" - that doesn't mean that the person taking them might be taking them with the intention of committing or preparing an act of terrorism, simply that the material itself may be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Presumably, if for example I lose my camera, or it gets nicked from me or my home, or I publish a photo on my photo website, or it gets republished elsewhere for whatever reason, anyone might get hold of that image, and they could have any number of uses for it, including committing or preparing an act of terrorism. So this law seems to criminalise the taking of the photo in the first place. Intent becomes irrelevant, potential usage by ANYONE is the "risk" being mitigated against by this legislation.
I personally have never been hassled by the police for taking photographs, but then I've not been out that much in town with my camera. What really worries me is that, whether or not anyone is ever convicted under this legislation, it will be ABused wilfully or ignorantly by officers who simply don't want their images to be captured, for whatever reason (including their own illegal/criminal behaviour), and that this ABuse will have awful consequences for anyone who is subject to such behaviour.
What advice for us amateurs?
There are a few photos of this event, with a predictably noticeable absence of many actual Police Constables (Police Community Support Officers are not constables) in this posting on Indymedia (save copies of these yourself, before their servers are seized, again)
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/422182.html
More links to photos of the this demonstration, with some more photos of "good natured" Police constables [via the British Journal of Photography]:
And a few more here... I’m a Photographer … not a Terrorist
br -d